V
When little Lib told the story I give below, Deacon Zenas Welcome was
one of the listeners. The deacon was a son of old Elder Welcome who had
been many years before the pastor of the little church in a neighboring
village. Elder Welcome was one of the old-fashioned sort not so common
in these days, a good man, but stern and somewhat harsh. He preached
only the terrors of the law, dwelt much upon the doctrines, the decrees,
election, predestination, and eternal punishment, and rarely lingered
over such themes as the fatherhood of God, his love to mankind, and his
wonderful gift to a lost world. The son followed in his father's
footsteps. He was a hard, austere, melancholy man, undemonstrative and
reticent, shutting out all brightness from his own life, and clouding
many an existence going on around him. I have always thought that his
unwonted presence among us that day had a purpose, and that he had come
to spy out some taint of heterodoxy in Lib's tales, to reprove and
condemn. He went away quietly, however, when the story was ended, and we
heard nothing of reproof or condemnation.